Darkside Love Affair

by Michelle Rosigliani

  The fear from the dream was all the more real when I remembered that despite all evidence, Jase Parker was not my attacker. My attacker was free and roaming around like a vulture.

  “Charlotte, what’s the matter?” Marcus asked.

  He walked into my bedroom, still wearing his pajamas, and cradled me to his chest. It felt safe and inviting to hide there in his embrace, but he wasn’t going to tolerate that. Gently, like he didn’t want to break me, he pushed the hair out of my face and tilted my chin up so he could stare into my eyes.

  I didn’t tell him about Vincent Cole. When he thought about that night, Marcus didn’t look any better than I felt. If I was correct about Cole, and Marcus found out just how close my attacker had always been, I couldn’t guarantee he would not do something stupid.

  If I was correct, Vincent Cole should be the last to learn about my suspicions. As long as he didn’t know the things I knew about him, I was at an advantage, and that was how I needed things to remain.

  Camouflaging the distaste I now felt for Cole with approval or respect was difficult. When he approached me at the police station the previous day, my hair had stood on end. After declining his offer to act as my lawyer, I hoped he would just go away, but he had lurked around like he wanted to assess what I had seen and planned to divulge.

  When we exited the police station, he had been leaning against the car Marcus had rented. He had looked concerned, but I wasn’t so easily fooled anymore.

  “I thought Parker looked suspicious when we talked to him, but I never expected him to act against you,” Cole had said. “Maybe the only reason he did talk to us was to have an alibi, when in truth, he had already killed her.”

  Cole had said it in passing, like a mere comment thrown out there without a second thought, but perhaps his intention had been more calculated then I imagined. Maybe his intention all along had been to plant the seed of doubt, to make Parker look guilty so Cole himself could not be suspected of killing Rheya or attacking me afterward.

  If his theory about Jase had a leg to stand on, then he could be a suspect just as well. He could have killed Rheya than come to me to have an alibi and later go on campus to look for Parker so he could lay the blame at his feet.

  My head threatened to explode. I groaned but kept all those thoughts quiet. Instead, I told Marcus the other half of the matter.

  “I had a nightmare,” I admitted, my voice small, my heart still thundering in my chest.

  “Brayden?” Marcus all but growled. His jaw set, his eyes turned tempestuous, but his touch remained warm and soothing. Then he continued in a calmer voice. “Look, Charlotte, he’s getting help, he’s—”

  “I know that. It wasn’t Brayden,” I said and let my fingers play across his stubbled cheeks. “Marcus, I don’t think the nightmares were ever about Brayden. I think they were about you saving me.”

  “It’s funny,” Marcus chuckled and mirrored my gesture. He caught my face between his hands and pressed his lips to mine. “I’m not the savior in our story.”

  I shook my head but smiled as I indulged in caressing his face, his hair, his shoulders until finally, I settled on his lap. If he didn’t know it in his heart that he had saved me from a world of fears and insecurities and made me bold and daring instead, then no words were going to convince him.

  “Then what did you dream about?” he asked and looked away.

  Faced with my grateful, loving gestures, I could swear he was blushing. However, as the dream flooded my mind, the desire to tease him waned and finally disappeared altogether.

  “Jase Parker. Jennifer Gunnar.”

  I shuddered. The way Jennifer Gunnar had died seemed ghastlier than ever.

  “Charlotte, you are not Jennifer Gunnar. What happened to her will never happen to you.”

  “I know, but I can’t help thinking that the way I was attacked seems so close to how Jennifer was killed. What if—” I trailed off and took my head in my hands. “What if she didn’t die by gunshot? What if she had been injected with an overdose just like—my attacker wanted to inject me?”

  “The reports never mentioned any substances found in her blood. She was declared dead after being shot,” Marcus muttered and frowned, deep in thought. But he was right. The reports had never mentioned any trace of illegal substances found in Jennifer’s body.

  “I know it’s a long shot, but maybe she was shot after she was injected to conceal the actual reason for her death—God, I sound like a madwoman.”

  Although it wasn’t going to solve anything, I had the explicit desire to bang my head against the wall. Marcus sensed my frustration, and cupping my cheek, he gave me a look that urged me to calm down, then he kissed me long and hard and soothing. Neither the kisses nor his touches were going to solve a thing, but they did manage to settle my turbulent nerves.

  “Not exactly. Your theory has merit,” he continued after some thought. “The mayor is suspected of running a drug trafficking organization. It wouldn’t have looked good to have his family tied so closely to a case that involved drugs. The prosecution would have looked into whoever dealt the drugs, and everything would have led back to the mayor’s alleged business. So you might be right. They might have tried to cover this up by shooting Jennifer after she had already been killed. But shouldn’t the autopsy have shown that?”

  “Not if they buried the evidence,” I replied in a quiet, staccato voice. Then I frowned and leaned back so I could see Marcus’s face. “How did you know all of that?”

  He shook his head like it was nothing and unwound his arms from my waist to stand. My phone rang on the nightstand, and Marcus walked to the window, running a hand over his face and looking exactly like he had been saved by the bell. I was baffled and somewhat curious about his sudden change of attitude but decided that I should take the call.

  It was my father.

  “What in the world have you done to be removed from the Stewart case?”

  I didn’t know whether it was my father’s fury and the harshness of his voice or the shocking news that rendered me speechless, but I found myself unable to reply. Then the part of me that was angry and resented him and was often hurt by his severity took over.

  “Is that the only thing that concerns you, Father?” I asked. I was angry with him, but more so with myself. I wanted to be strong and collected just like he always was, but instead, I was crumbling. “You have nearly lost a daughter, and the only thing you care about is why I no longer work for Jack Stewart?”

  My question, or perhaps the rage that was laced around it, gave him pause.

  “Quit the dramatics, Charlotte,” James finally answered. “You have been discharged immediately. I assumed that you were fine, that it was nothing to worry over.”

  “It wasn’t nothing, Father,” I sighed and massaged my temples. When had this chasm between us widened so much that I could hardly reach or recognize him? “You know what would have been nice? A call from my father, last night when I was scared and alone.”

  “Charlotte—”

  “You know what?” I snapped. I didn’t need his comfort, nor his scolding. “I’m glad that I’m no longer a part of Jack Stewart’s case, so deal with it.”

  I hung up then stared at my phone shocked. I had just hung up on James Burton. Then I started laughing.

  Marcus watched me, grinning, his stance relaxed, his eyes proud.

  “I thought you weren’t so daring as to confront your father,” he teased but winked encouragingly.

  “Well, a certain someone showed me that I could.”

  I laced my arms around his waist and stood on my tiptoes to meet him halfway, where our little firestorm started. We chuckled and kissed and almost got lost in our bubble when Marcus pushed me back gently.

  “Come on, we have work to do.”

  HE HAD ME DRESSED AND out the door in less than half an hour. At first, he enjoyed my confusion and curiosity, but little by little, he grew quiet and pensive, almost sullen. Then I remembered his earlie
r insight into Jennifer’s death and the things he knew about Mitch Stewart.

  Something was off about Marcus and that feeling only intensified when I laid my hand on his knee, and he didn’t even notice.

  The car stopped at a traffic light, but the silence didn’t. In fact, it expanded until my nervous system threatened to combust at any moment. And all the while, Marcus kept his eyes trained forward, unblinking and unseeing. He was still, except for the occasional cracking of his neck and the overwrought flexing of his hands around the steering wheel.

  In his perfect quietness, the brooding quality of his expression, with his narrowed eyes, clenched jaw, and the far-away light in his gaze, would have rendered him mouthwatering if something hadn’t been utterly wrong.

  I tried again, stroking his knee, then let my fingers travel up his thigh, applying the exact amount of pressure to attract his attention. My wish to comfort him and my endeavor to seduce him were equally ineffective.

  I let out a frustrated sigh and glanced out my window, removing my hand from his knee. The car surged forward illegally fast, and firm, unbending fingers coiled around my wrist, forcing my hand back where it had been. Was this his silent demand for comfort?

  “Talk to me,” I pleaded on a new tension loaded sigh. It might not have been his intention, but emotionally, he was pushing me away, and I hated it.

  “I have a surprise for you,” Marcus replied quietly as if all of a sudden, he lacked the energy to speak louder, or as if he was working very hard on controlling something dark and raw battling within him.

  Eventually, he pulled the car into a nearly empty parking lot, in front of a facility that looked rather like a fortified warehouse. I watched him quizzically, but instead of explaining where we were and why, he climbed out of the Jaguar, rounded the vehicle, and opened my door, waiting tensely for me to join him on the sidewalk.

  Troubled eyes assessed me before he leaned close, drinking me in through parted lips. Neither of us spoke. We remained still, close but not quite touching, our eyes locked in a silent, intimate conversation. It was Marcus who finally sighed, ran a hand over his face, then grabbed my elbows and took my mouth as if through that gesture he could remind me that I was bound to him.

  “It’s for your protection and my peace of mind.”

  “What is?”

  He clasped my hand and led me toward the facility where understanding finally dawned on me.

  JH Private Shooting Complex hung written in big bold letters over the entrance. Marcus opened a narrow glass door and nodded for me to walk inside, looking all tense, uncertain, and adorable.

  I was not a violent person. I had never considered applying for a firearm license because I had never been in so much danger that I would need a gun to save my life. But times had changed, and Marcus had been so thoughtful and loving that he had taken care of things before I even considered them. I tightened my hold on his hand and forced him to stop in the middle of an almost empty lobby.

  His taut expression turned perplexed when he registered the small smile on my face. I wasn’t smiling necessarily because I was eager to have a gun in my hands and feel the power it granted. I was smiling because his gesture, a little extreme as it was, proved his feelings more than his words had.

  I enjoyed spoken declarations and romantic acts like any other woman, but what I craved was the security of being loved, and that type of protection only came from these gestures that proved more than words ever did.

  “Thank you,” I whispered, returning his earlier kiss and letting my fingers linger for a few moments on his lips.

  Marcus didn’t even blink as he pressed his lips against my fingertips, a wispy caress that he couldn’t control any more than I could subdue the feelings flaring up in my heart.

  “Mr. King? Ms. Burton?” a rough male voice interrupted us, and Marcus turned, snaking a strong arm around my waist. “I am Alexander James. I will be your instructor today. If you please, follow me.”

  Alexander James looked fierce and rebellious. He had intent downturned eyes and a bald head that glistened under the fluorescent lights. He wore a white polo shirt with olive cargo pants and dark brown boots with the laces left untied. His forearms were covered in monochrome tattoos that matched his daunting physique. His voice was deep and commanding, and his stride was confident as he turned around and led us down a hallway to a vast room that resembled a larger corridor than an actual room.

  I wanted to ask Marcus how the instructor knew my name, but I dismissed the problem quickly. The man must have remembered our names from the application forms that Marcus had probably filled out.

  We stopped next to five booths each separated by bulletproof glass that overlooked the sizable shooting range ahead. I hardly had any time to get properly acquainted with the new surroundings before James was already pushing safety gear in our hands. Apparently, he was a no-nonsense kind of man.

  “I assume neither of you consumed alcohol or any other illicit substances before this session—” James trailed off, waiting for our nods of consent, then went on naturally, ignoring my half-affronted stance. “You should always be wearing eye and ear protection.”

  He pointed a stiff finger to the safety glasses and black earplugs he had handed us and motioned us to put them on. I was a little intimidated by his commanding nature and instantly decided he had to be some kind of military man. However, my attention was soon distracted, and I had to strain not to gape and moan at the sight.

  Marcus laced the earplugs around his neck and put the safety glasses on like he had performed the task a million times before. His eyes gleamed with a tint of danger behind the lenses, and suddenly, my throat went dry, not because of fear, but of unprecedented desire.

  “I will always be present while you make use of your weapons,” James continued and produced two pistols that suddenly made the whole affair seem dark and serious. We were truly going to learn how to shoot. “The weapons remain unloaded until you are ready to use them.”

  He turned to an armory and pulled out a box that I quickly realized was full of bullets—lethal, metal bullets. I eyed the ammunition skeptically. I did not enjoy violence, nor did I want to be its performer. Yet, those bullets and the guns Alexander James placed on the counter of a booth only reiterated the danger that had brought me to this shooting range.

  “Shall we begin?” the instructor asked sternly, but somehow, he sensed my reluctance.

  Marcus stroked my back and kissed the top of my head before he walked to his own stand. He winked encouragingly and nodded for me to take the gun. Eventually, I took a deep breath and reached for the weapon.

  It was cold and foreign under my touch. Alexander James grabbed the second gun and pointed it forward, his stance firm and deliberate yet completely natural and relaxed. If earlier I had believed he was a military man, now I had proof. He looked like a man properly trained and disciplined in the military arts.

  I mimicked his posture and pointed to the shooting target—a sheet of paper with the black silhouette of a man. My fingers trembled around the gun and my breath hitched. Involuntarily, I glanced to my left and found Marcus smiling appreciatively. He watched me with his arms folded over his chest and a mischievous expression adorning his face.

  “Bad girl,” he mouthed, making me blush at the same time a sense of tranquility washed over me.

  “You always keep the gun pointed forward and your finger off the trigger unless you want to shoot.”

  “Understood,” I replied in a small voice and I could swear my instructor suppressed a smile.

  “Good. I will show you how to load your gun, then I will fire a demonstration, so you should put the earplugs on now.”

  He made quick work of loading his gun. I hardly kept up with his speed, but with a little help from him and reassuring, indulgent stares from Marcus, I eventually loaded my own. Then, Alexander James picked up his handgun, gripped it tightly, and fired without hesitation—two bullets to the heart and one to the head. No mistake, no
mercy.

  “Your turn, Miss Burton.”

  This time, Alexander James truly smiled. He took a step behind and put a hand on my waist as if to steady me. There was no mistaking the sudden frown that contorted Marcus’s expression, nor the stiffness of his clenched jaw.

  “Keep your back straight and firm and your legs slightly apart. It’s essential you keep your balance. Now you can grab your gun, but don’t forget to keep your finger off the trigger. That’s it, good,” he praised.

  I found it difficult to swallow as I tried to mimic his former posture as accurately as possible. I was a poor copy, though. My arms felt weak and uncertain, and the fingers grabbing the gun were sweaty, cold, and hesitant. What if, instead of using this weapon for self-protection, I ended up hurting people by mistake? What if it misfired? What if—

  “You’re overthinking, Charlotte,” Marcus cut in and curbed my thoughts. “Straighten your arms and take a good hold of your gun.”

  Somehow, his short, low-voiced instruction carried more weight than everything Alexander James had said. I nodded dutifully and tightened my hold on the pistol, then faced my target. I willed myself to aim and pull the trigger, but I just couldn’t.

  “May I?” I heard Marcus inquiring, but by the time I shifted my eyes to him, he was already behind me, his front plastered against my back. “Take a deep breath, Charlotte.”

  Then I understood why it was so difficult to make use of that weapon. Learning how to shoot and actually firing a gun went against every one of my beliefs. I had been taught to defend people against violence. I couldn’t be the one inflicting it. I turned pleading eyes to Marcus, and he sighed. He understood, but he wasn’t going to budge.

  “For your safety. For me, please,” he whispered and locked deep-ocean blues with my own hesitant eyes.

  Marcus’s hand glided up and down my spine, warming the flesh beneath my clothes. Yet, it was not necessarily warmth he intended to bring but comfort. Under his thoughtful, knowing touches, an inner quietness claimed me. And suddenly, the distance I felt between us earlier, his aloofness and rigidness, it all disappeared.